1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic musical instrument having a coupler-effect generation function effective for use in an electronic wind instrument, electronic keyboard instrument, etc., and, more particularly, to a technique for adding a coupler effect wherein an original tone at the first pitch specified by a pitch designation operation is generated and, at the same time, a coupler tone at a second pitch stored in advance in a memory is generated.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent progress and development of an electronic technique and digital technique are prominent, and various electronic musical instruments such as an electronic wind instrument and an electronic keyboard instrument using the techniques are developed and become very popular. Of these electronic musical instruments, some electronic keyboard instruments have a tone generation technique called a coupler effect producing function which, even when one pitch is designated, generates a first tone or an original tone at a first pitch specified by the pitch designation and, at the same time, generates a second tone or a coupler tone at a second pitch different from the first pitch. According to an electronic keyboard instrument having this tone generation function, it is possible to simultaneously generate two musical tones having a predetermined pitch difference and improve the performance effect.
According to a conventional electronic keyboard instrument, pitch designation for providing a coupler effect is carried out by storing into a memory section pitch difference data representing a pitch difference between a pitch specified by depression of a specific key and a pitch specified by depression of the next key and using this pitch difference data as the pitch difference for the coupler effect.
The conventional instrument, however, requires that, before playing a musical piece, a player should set a predetermined pitch difference each time, so that a pitch difference for a coupler effect cannot be properly altered during musical performance. Therefore, a fine performance effect for sequentially changing the coupler effect with progression of a melody cannot be provided.
As described above, electronic wind instruments are also developed. The electronic wind instruments detect a breath operation or lip operation of a player as an electric signal by means of a breath sensor or lip sensor provided at a mouth section to thereby finely control the volume, pitch, etc. of a musical tone electronically generated, and can therefore generate a musical tone matched with the feeling of the player. Accordingly, there is an idea of applying the aforementioned pitch designation technique for coupler effect as used in the electronic keyboard instruments to the above electronic wind instruments.
However, designation of a pitch for electronic wind instruments, unlike that for electronic keyboard instruments, is executed by operating in combination of a plurality of pitch designation switches. It is not, therefore, possible to apply the pitch designation technique for coupler effect, which is used for electronic keyboard instruments, as it is to electronic wind instrument.